¹ Survey of the Mainland China Press (hereafter abbreviated SCMP), No. 3756, pp. 31–32.Google Scholar

² The literature of the Cultural Revolution is extraordinarily silent about what would seem to have been a natural target, especially during the campaign against the “Four Olds.” In “A Hundred Examples of Smashing the Old and Establishing the New,” posted at a Peking middle school on 1 September 1966, all sorts of things to be smashed are listed—even finger-guessing and t'ai-chi ch'üan—but nothing is said about temples, monks, festivals and so on (Extracts from China Mainland Magazines, hereafter abbreviated ECMM, No. 566, pp. 16–20). Perhaps the closest thing to a specific allusion to Buddhism was printed in Canton, where the “Four Olds” were said to include “altars for worshipping the gods,” rites for dead ancestors, and feudal festivals (SCMP, No. 3778, p. 7) and where a shop that sold religious goods was closed down (SCMP, No. 3774, p. 13).Google Scholar

³ A check of biographical files in Hong Kong (U.S. Consulate General, Union Research Institute, etc.), made in 05 1969, revealed that the last dates on which important Buddhists had been mentioned were as follows: A-wang Chia-ts'o (3 August 1966); Chou Shu-chia (3 August 1966); Chü-tsan (16 June 1966); Chao P'u-ch'u (20 April 1966, but last mentioned as a Buddhist 1 March 1966); Shih Ming-k'o (4 April 1966, as a Buddhist 11 August 1964); Ch'ih-sung (8 May 1965); Shirob Jaltso (30 November 1965, as a Buddhist 26 March 1964); Li I-p'ing (6 August 1965); Kuo P'eng (23 August 1965); Lü Ch'eng (13 December 1964); Wei-fang (15 September 1964); Ming-chen (11 August 1964); Ying-tz'u (14 July 1962); Chia-mu-yang (27 April 1962, as a Buddhist 27 February 1962). February 1962 was the date of the third and most recent conference of the Chinese Buddhist Association, when most of the 231 directors then elected were mentioned for the last time.Google Scholar

⁴ See Holmes, Welch, “Buddhism in the Cold War,” Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 35, No. 9 (8 03 1962), pp. 555–563Google Scholar and “Buddhism after the Seventh,” Ibid., Vol. 47, No. 10 (12 March 1965), pp. 433–435).

⁵ The conference in October 1963 was attended by delegates from 11 countries, including the first ever to come from Pakistan and Indonesia. Some of the same delegates returned for the conference in June 1964, at which eight countries were represented. Only the Burmese kept aloof throughout.Google Scholar

⁶ Refugees reported such a recrudescence in the cities; and in the countryside it was revealed in documents captured by Nationalist guerrillas raiding Lien-chiang hsien, Fukien. On the latter see Chen, C. S. and Charles Price, Ridley, Rural People's Communes in Lien-chiang (Stanford, 1969), pp. 49, 97–98, 110, 172, 183 and 185. Press translations provide occasional confirmation, as in SCMP No. 2649, p. 19; No. 2683, p. 29; No. 2742, pp. 19–20; No. 2805, p. 18; No. 3048, pp. 9, 12–13; No. 3141, pp. 4–7; No. 3180, p. 16; No. 3783, p. 14; No. 4018, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

⁷ A good summary of this debate by Winifred Glüer may be found in Ching Feng: Quarterly Notes on Christianity and Chinese Religion and Culture (Hong Kong, 1967), Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 34–57.Google ScholarCf. China Notes (New York, October 1965), Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 1–7.Google Scholar

⁸ Hsin chien-she, Vol. 10, No. 33 (20 10 1965). Compare SCMP, No. 3599, p. 17.Google Scholar

⁹ Jen-min shou-t'se, 1965, p. 143.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See note 2.Google Scholar

¹¹ The only sources available are Mainland visitors and refugees. For one of the former, see Colin, Mackerras and Neale, Hunter, China Observed (New York, 1967), pp. 82–83.Google Scholar The observations of some Japanese and English visitors in the autumn of 1966 and the spring and summer of 1967 are summarized in China Notes, Vol. 5, No. 3, p. 2 (07 1967), Vol. 5, No. 4 (October 1967), p. 4, and Vol. 6, No. 1 (January 1968), p. 4. The closure of temples in the Cultural Revolution may have begun before 18 August 1966. A Japanese Buddhist delegation that went to China in June was not permitted to visit monasteries aside from the one where they joined in commemorative rites for I-hsüan, founder of the Lin-chi sect. A foreign student who visited Hang-chow at the end of July found that all three T'ien-chu monasteries were closed and locked. At the Shang T'ien-chu, which appeared to have been closed quite recently, “no entry” signs were posted at the outer gate, and, looking through the windows of the main shrine-halls, one could see that the images and religious paraphernalia had been removed.Google Scholar

¹² A photograph widely reproduced showed an image at the Ling-yin Ssu (apparently an image of Maitreya, the next buddha to come) covered with slogans reading “Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat,” “Smash the old world, create a new world,” and so on: see N.Y. Times, 29 08 1966.Google Scholar I have in my possession a photograph of this same monastery (the largest in Hangchow) taken several months later in January 1967. It shows the lofty main building completely deserted, every door and window shut tight, and a tattered “Long live the people” posted over “Ta-hsiung pao-tien,” the traditional name for the great shrine-hall in Chinese monasteries. Another interesting photograph appeared in Bodhedrum (Taichung), No. 169, p. 6 (8 12 1966). Presumably taken in August or September, it showed slogans posted over the doors of the Kuei-yüan Ssu, the principal Buddhist monastery in Hankow. The slogans read: “Smash the old, establish the new; smash greatly, establish greatly.” The doors were sealed with strips of paper, so that they could not be secretly opened.Google Scholar

¹³ Known cases include the Neng-jen Ssu in Kiukiang, where foreign visitors observed that all the images had been removed; and the Liu-jung Ssu, Canton, on which information is provided in the Mainland press (Canton Hung-wei pao, 1 09 1966, translated in SCMP No. 3781, p. 15). Cf. World Buddhism (Ceylon), Vol. 15, No. 10, p. 291 (May 1967).Google Scholar

¹⁴ The Wo-fo Ssu near Peking was reported occupied by Red Guards in the Tokyo Shimbun, 29 September 1967. The Liu-jung Ssu may have been converted into a cardboard-box factory: see China Notes, Vol. 5, No. 2 (04 1967), p. 4. Refugees reported the conversion into factories of the San-yüan Kung (Canton's principal Taoist temple) and the Hung Miao in Shanghai, a centre of the popular religion.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Tokuda, Myohon, “Seeing Chinese Buddhism under the Cultural Revolution” (in Japanese), Asahi Shimbun (Osaka), 27 10 1967.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Concrete information about the campaign for monks and nuns to marry is scarce. Chiang Ch'ing is quoted as saying: “There are large numbers of monks and nuns in Chekiang streets. Let the nuns get married.” See the Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 61, No. 29 (18 07 1968), p. 148.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Life (7 10 1966), pp. 40–41, printed photographs of the images, altars and other furnishings of the San-ch'ing Kung, blazing away before a crowd of spectators.Google Scholar

¹⁸ NCNA, 25 08 1966Google Scholar, quoted by Hsiang-kang fo-chiao (Buddhism in Hong Kong), No. 77 (1 10 1966), p. 3.Google Scholar

¹⁹ N.Y. Times, 25 12 1966.Google ScholarCf. Mackerras, and Hunter, , China Observed, p. 83. A Canadian$$$(MS PAFE NO 132). journalist who saw the statues at the Ling-yin Ssu (see note 12) being plastered with slogans was told that the monastery was a national monument; and that therefore the Red Guards were only making the symbolic gesture of breaking one bench and throwing a small buddha to the ground (Associated Press, dispatch printed in the Boston Globe, 28 August 1966).Google Scholar

²⁰ Chung-yang jih-pao, 14 04 1967. A similar report (of unstated origin) was published in World Buddhism, Vol. 15, No. 6 (January 1967), p. 175, which described how an overseas Chinese woman had had to pay “bail” to some Red Guards who had “jailed” her two buddha images “as a hindrance to the Cultural Revolution.”Google Scholar

²¹ A report apparently brought by a refugee to Hong Kong tells of three elderly monks living in a village between Hong Kong and Canton. When Red Guards from Peking arrived there, they whipped the monks, demolished their small temple, and replaced all ancestor tablets with portraits of Mao Tse-tung. I think that such accounts of Red Guard excesses, while individually unverifiable, are consistent with the revolutionary atmosphere for which there is ample confirmation in Red Guard newspapers. Actually the harshest treatment of a Buddhist monk was reported in an official broadcast. On 29 August 1966 a monastery in Harbin was wrecked and a rally of 100,000 people was held to denounce its abbot, Ching-kuan, who was then arrested by the Public Security forces: see FBIS, 30 August 1966, DDD 3. Ching-kuan had been in good standing until then, having served on the council of the Chinese Buddhist Association since 1957: see Hsien-tai fo-hsüeh (Modern Buddhism), No. 5 (1957), p. 21.Google Scholar

²² NCNA, 3 August 1966. This statement is based on a check of the biographical files mentioned in note 3.Google Scholar

²³ See China Notes, Vol. 6, No. 3 (07 1968), p. 4Google Scholar, and Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 1969), pp. 13–15. Among those attacked and/or dismissed and/or arrested during the Cultural Revolution was Liu, Ying “former deputy director of the Religious Affairs Section of the United Front Work Department”: see Canton Yeh-chan pao, No. 12–13 (03 1958)Google Scholar, as translated in SCMP, No. 4158, p. 11. In 1957 Liu had been introduced to a Japanese Buddhist delegation in Peking as a “division chief (ch'u-chang)” of the Religious Affairs Bureau under the State Council. He is the only casualty whose name I have seen mentioned.Google Scholar

²⁴ See Wolfgang, Appel, “Chinesische Impressionen im Jahre 20 nach Mao,” Neue Württembergische Zeitung (Göppingen), 10 04 1969.Google Scholar

²⁵ The only news of Red Guards reaching a famous mountain was reported by a West German who saw them defacing inscriptions and dismantling a tomb on Lu Shan (Life, 7 10 1966). The significance of this report is diminished by the fact that Lu Shan has not been an important centre of living Buddhism in modern China.Google Scholar

²⁶ On regional differences in the condition of Buddhism, see Holmes Welch, The Buddhist Revival in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 246–252.Google Scholar

²⁷ The last ordinations in the Mainland were held in the Spring of 1957 at Ku Shan and P'u-t'o Shan: see Hsien-tai fo-hsüeh (Modern Buddhism), No. 2 (1957), p. 30Google Scholar and China News Service, 16 05 1957.Google Scholar